Anne Geddes

Anne Geddes, MNZM, (b. September 13, 1956) is an Australian-born photographer, clothing designer and businesswoman who now lives and works in New Zealand. She is known for her stylized depictions of babies and motherhood.

In most of her work, babies or young children are dressed as fairies and fairytale creatures, flowers, or small animals, such as bunnies. Her subjects idealized; babies in her photographs are almost always sleeping or staring into space, as if still in utero. She has described herself as "a baby freak".[1]

Geddes' books have been published in 83 countries.[2] According to Amazon.com she has sold more than 18 million books and 13 million calendars.[3] Her books have been translated into 23 different languages.

Geddes is self-taught, as there were no photography courses at her school.

Anne was born in Queensland, Australia, on September 13, 1956, the third daughter in the family. Raised on a vast 26,000-acre beef cattle property in North Queensland, Australia, Anne and her four sisters were true country kids. They spent their time horseback riding, mustering cattle, and swimming in flooded creek beds during the wet season. At eleven or twelve years of age, she would drive the Land Rover slowly through parched paddocks in the dry season, with her sisters standing on the back, dropping hay for the cattle.

Anne has a distinct memory of standing in the family’s front garden when she was seven or eight years old. It was a sunny day, very hot, and her mother was hanging the laundry on their clothesline. Anne told her mother that there was something she needed to do, and her mother casually replied that she should run off and play, but Anne said, “That’s not what I mean.” It was a moment of absolute clarity for Anne, a premonition of the deeply felt belief that would become her passion and life’s work.

Growing up, she pored over magazines such as National Geographic and Life (her favorite), with their high values placed on the strength and quality of their photography. She loved images of people and remembers being fascinated by the concept of a single still image capturing an exact moment in time that could never be repeated.

At 17, Anne took a job with a chain of tourist hotels in New Zealand, traveling overseas for the first time. To record her day-to-day adventures, she began taking literally hundreds of photographs, observing and learning to appreciate the different qualities of natural light. When she was 22, Anne opened and closed her small retail-clothing store, Daddy Long Legs, and was hired as a secretary at a local television station in Brisbane, Australia, moving into a setting where a visual medium was at the forefront. She thrived in the concentrated, creative environment and also met Kel Geddes, the station’s programming director. Anne and Kel married in Hong Kong in 1983.

In Hong Kong, re-evaluating her career options—she had to relinquish her job in marketing and publicity for a large chain of department stores in Queensland, Australia—Anne decided to endeavor to establish a small portraiture business, photographing neighbors’ and friends’ children, on location in their homes, gardens, or local parks. She attached a handwritten notice to the community board in her supermarket, and slowly, calls came in.

After two years in Hong Kong, during which she built up a fairly extensive portfolio, Anne and Kel returned to Sydney, Australia; they welcomed their first daughter in 1984. Working from inside their family home, Anne created her first photographic holiday card for her family, which led to cards for friends and soon, the launch of her small personalized greeting card business. As Kel’s television career continued to advance, the family moved to Melbourne, Australia, in 1986.

In Melbourne, Anne set up her first studio, reclaiming an old run-down garage at the back of their garden. Acting as an unpaid assistant to a local photographer, Anne developed her interest in working in a studio environment. She also entered her first photographic competition and placed second. Anne and Kel’s second daughter was born in Melbourne in 1986. The family moved to Auckland, New Zealand, when Kel was commissioned to launch the first independent television network in that country.

In 1988, Anne’s image of Gemma, a little girl standing in a tutu, taken previously in her studio in Melbourne, became her first published photograph, appearing in a local magazine in Auckland. The magazine feature on Anne and her photography and this image of Gemma created an interest in what was at the time a very different style of portraiture. After a short (“harrowing” in her words) experience as a wedding photographer, Anne decided to specialize in children’s portraiture, working out of her tiny new studio, Especially Kids, in Auckland.

Anne’s portraiture business was thriving, and in 1990, she decided to take one day a month to explore her inspirations and create an image purely for herself. The first and second images from these personal shoots were “Joshua” and “Rhys and Grant,” twins who became known as her “Cabbage Kids”—one of her most recognized photographs around the world.

In 1992, Kel left his highly successful career as Network President of Programming for Australia’s Channel 10 and became Anne’s business partner, and the first Anne Geddes card collection was introduced in New Zealand, becoming an instant success. Anne placed 1st in two sections at the AGFA Photokina in Germany, among other awards and accolades. It was this level of professional recognition, coupled with a request to help raise money for the prevention of child abuse, and the success of Anne’s greeting cards that led to thoughts of producing a calendar.

It was ten years between the time Anne first photographed friends’ babies in Hong Kong and the publication of the first Anne Geddes calendar, released in New Zealand in 1992. When she was approached about increasing awareness of the prevention of child abuse, Anne recalled the shadow of her own emotionally barren childhood; this first opportunity to reach a wider audience with her images went hand-in-hand with her desire to help others and support children, the most vulnerable in our society. Anne and Kel were unable to attract a publisher and distributor, so they sold the calendar door-to-door from the back of their car and in camera store outlets, collecting more than US $20,000 to help prevent child abuse and neglect. Their charitable giving formed the basis for what later became the nonprofit Geddes Philanthropic Trust.

Anne and Kel took a leap of faith to publish her second calendar, available in 1993 in New Zealand and Australia. They sold their home in New Zealand and—confident they could risk it all, even with two girls to raise—invested their life savings to self-publish 20,000 copies in Australia; the calendar sold out within three weeks. Using the profits, they printed another 20,000 copies, which also sold out. Soon afterward, they received a call from an interested publisher. Anne’s calendars continue to be extremely successful. The charitable side of Anne and Kel’s life extended to include donations from all product sold under the Anne Geddes name.

At this time, Anne and Kel were reading bedtime stories full of fantasy characters to their young girls, and Anne began to envision a fairy tale told through photography—the beginnings of her first large-format gift book, Down in the Garden. Including many of the images she shot during her personal sessions, expanding upon her artistic vision, Down in the Garden was published in 1996 and led to Anne’s first appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Oprah’s chat with Anne and her enthusiastic appreciation of Anne’s imagery featured on the show ignited interest in Anne coast-to-coast in the U.S. Down in the Garden took the world by storm and received broad international acclaim as the world fell in love with Anne and her distinctive imagery.

Contributing her expertise in another visual media, Anne directed two television commercials inspired by her images for a leading U.S. retailer in 1997. Reaching the extensive national broadcast audience in the U.S., her work in this field won Gold Awards for Best Retail Commercials at the Annual Retail Award Presentations.

Her artistry continued to develop and Anne explored new expressions of her deeply held belief that we must protect, nurture, and love all children. In 1998, she and Kel formally founded the Geddes Philanthropic Trust and inaugurated the first Geddes Fellowship, a program to fund a dedicated primary physician concentrating in the identification, treatment, and research of child abuse and neglect—in this instance at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, Australia.

Awards and accolades, such as the prestigious Kodak Fotobuchpreis, continued to recognize her new works and achievements, including her internationally bestselling calendars and books.

Anne’s 1998 book Until Now, printed in eight languages, included her previously unpublished, sophisticated black-and-white studies, revealing to many a new side of her creativity and originality. She embarked on her first international book tour, and sat with top magazine, newspaper, and television interviewers, who brought her images to new and expanding audiences in several countries. Her photographs became classic icons celebrating the beauty, purity, vulnerability, and preciousness of children. Until Now, together with her earlier titles—among them My First Five Years and Little Thoughts with Love—continued to be top sellers, and by 2000, more than 14 million Anne Geddes books had been sold worldwide.

Reflecting her years of experience with new babies and her conversations with more than 2,000 mothers—and seeing how mothers struggled with clothing in her now-larger Auckland studio, Anne designed an elegant and timeless collection of clothing and accessories for infants. Made with baby’s comfort in mind, Anne Geddes Baby was introduced in 2001. Anne Geddes Baby offerings are available at Anne’s web site, www.annegeddes.com, which had launched in 1999 and remains an international success story, attracting more than 3.1 million visits yearly from more than 220 countries.

In close succession, Anne released two internationally bestselling books. Five years in the making and launched simultaneously in Europe and the U.S. in 2002, PURE was an impressive visual statement of the new directions Anne was pursuing in color and black-and-white photography and received international acclaim. In PURE, Anne depicted the absolute promise of a newborn and the honest beauty of pregnant women.

The genesis of MIRACLE, Anne’s artistic collaboration with Celine Dion, was Anne’s thought that she might be in a position to bring joy to Stacy, a nine-year-old girl struggling with cancer. She and Kel were very close to Stacy, who was a huge fan of Celine. Anne had heard that Celine was a fan of hers, so she thought she might ask Celine to contact the girl. She did, and Celine phoned Stacy in her hospital room. From Anne’s call to thank Celine grew an understanding of their common values, and the images and music that became Miracle, published simultaneously in 22 countries in 11 languages in 2004.

Continuing their charitable giving, more than $83,400 from the Geddes Philanthropic Trust was donated in 2005 to the UNICEF South Asia Tsunami Relief Effort. Following Hurricane Katrina in the U.S., Anne and Kel provided more than 20,000 items of Anne Geddes Baby clothing to benefit the babies affected.

Also in 2005, Anne and Kel christened the first Anne Geddes retail store in the Downtown Disney® District in Anaheim, California. For the first time, visitors could enjoy selections of Anne’s large, art-quality prints displayed in a “viewing gallery.” Becoming a regular visitor, Anne stops by now and again from her home in Australia, enjoying the opportunity to chat with friends and fans and to sign her books. A live webcam has covered her visits.

Stepping from behind the camera, Anne spoke about her life and art in her eagerly anticipated autobiography, A Labor of Love, published in 2007 to international acclaim. She shared details of her growing-up years, her unfolding career, behind-the-scenes stories about creating her images, and her deeply felt dedication to helping to prevent child abuse and neglect. A Labor of Love was preceded by Cherished Thoughts with Love (2005) and followed by Be Gentle with the Young (2008).

In early 2009, the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) honored Anne with its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award, and she received a rousing ovation for her standing-room-only keynote at Imaging 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona. Anne commenced work on the first of two new projects in her Sydney studio, where her two daughters now work alongside her.

Today, Anne's award-winning images have been published in 83 countries spanning North America, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Her books have sold more than 18 million copies worldwide and have been translated into 24 languages.